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The New Dinosaurs
'' The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution'' (1988) is a book written by geologist and paleontologist Dougal Dixon. While Dixon's earlier book After Man is set fifty million years in the future, The New Dinosaurs speculates on how the dinosaurs would have evolved over the last 65 million years had the Cretaceous-Palaeogene extinction event not taken place. The book contains a few suggestions inconsistent with current scientific knowledge. Pterosaurs and feathered dinosaurs replace birds in dominance, even though fossil evidence proves both groups (apart from maniraptora) were declining rapidly before the mass extinction took place. Dinosaurs were also filling the roles that mammals and squamates occupied during the dinosaur age, and most of the dinosaurs were covered with hair. Meanwhile, plesiosaurs seem to replace mosasaurs, despite the fact the latter were replacing the former in the late Cretaceous. All of these "mistakes" in the book are more likely just concurrent with the evidence and theories at the time of publishing, or perhaps the alternative evolution in the book began far earlier than assumed. An advanced version of this same concept (called The Speculative Dinosaur Project) is represented by a group of paleoartists in recent years. Denizens of The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution Ammonites *'Coconut Grab,' an ammonite that crawls onto land to grab coconuts, similar to our robber crab. The coconut Grab can even climb trees (Oceania). *'Kraken, ' a massive floating ammonite with a shell 13 feet in diameter. Its tentacles are covered with poisonous barbs like those of a jellyfish. These deadly tentacles spread out in an area of 67 feet in diameter. The kraken only fears the pelorus, who is immune to its poisonous stings. Dinosaurs *'Balaclav, ' a large mountain-dwelling thescelosaur (an American relative of hypsilophodonts). It feeds mostly on the sparse vegetation along mountain slopes (North America). *'Bricket,' a deer-like hadrosaur (Eurasia). *'Cutlasstooth, '''a saber-toothed predatory dinosaur (South America). *'Coneater,' a large social hypsilophodont with an elongated snout to store large batteries of cheek teeth (Eurasia). *'Crackbeak, ' an arboreal hypsilophodont that evolved specialized perching feet. They use their beaks for cracking seeds and fruit (Africa, Asia, and Australia). *'Cribrum,' a flamingo-like predatory dinosaur with slender teeth for straining soda lakes for microorganisms (Australia). *'Debaril,' a small running and hopping hypsilophodont (Eurasia). *'Dingum, a meter-long predatory dinosaur with sexual dimorphism. Males are partially quadrapedal with a sail atop its back. The rays in this sail are tipped with venomous barbs, containing poisons from consumed desert plants. Females are larger and look more like a typical predatory dinosaur (Australia). *Dip,' a fish-eating mountain-dwelling predatory dinosaur (South America). *'Flurrit,' a gliding predatory dinosaur (Asia). *'Footle,' an agile squirrel-like two-legged arboreal predatory dinosaur (North America). *'Gestalt,' a colonial pacheyocephalosaur. They build fortresses in trees where the queen sits on eggs. Males serve as soldiers in the colonies (Eurasia). *'Gimp,' a nectar-sipping arboreal predatory dinosaur (South America). *'Glub,' an aquatic hypsilophodont with no back legs (Asia). *'Gourmand,' a scavenging tyrannosaur with detachable jaws and no front limbs (South America). *'Gwanna,' a kangaroo-like relative of ''Iguanodon. It inhabits grasslands and deserts. It has two movable fingers with two stationary ones and a thumb spike (Australia). *'Hanuhan,' a fleet-footed rock-dwelling hypsilophodont (Asia). *'Jinx,' a sickle-clawed predatory dinosaur that imitates the coneaters. It looks and smells like its prey so packs can wander into coneater herds and attack (Eurasia). *'Lumber,' a large sauropod with a small elephant-like trunk (South America). *'Megalosaur,' a surviving carnosaur from the Mesozoic. It survives on an island off the coast of Africa and spends most of its life scavenging. A species of dwarf megalosaur inhabits small islands(Madagascar) *'Monocorn,' a buffalo-like horned dinosaur(North America) *'Mountain Leaper,' an agile mountain-dwelling predatory dinosaur (North America). *'Nauger,' a woodpecker-like arboreal predatory dinosaur (North America). *'Northclaw,' a cheetah-like predatory dinosaur with a claw on its arm used for killing(North America) *'Numbskull,' a mountain-dwelling pacheyocephalosaur (Asia). *'Pangaloon,' an armored insect-eating predatory dinosaur (South America). *'Pouch,' a duck-like predatory dinosaur with webbed feet, a stiff tail, and a transparent throat pouch like that of a pelican (Australia). *'Rajaphant,' a socially-sophisticated sauropod (Asia). *'Sandle,' a burrowing mole-like predatory dinosaur (Africa). *'Scaly Glider,' an arboreal predatory dinosaur with a fan of plates along its sides for gliding (South America). *'Springe,' a predatory dinosaur that attracts its prey by playing dead, then stabbing it with its sickle toe claws (North America) *'Sprintosaur,' antelope-like hadrosaurs. They come in two types: short-tailed crested sprintosaurs and long-tailed sprintosaurs without crests (North America). *'Taddey,' a panda-like hypsilophodont (Asia). *'Taranter,' a desert-dwelling ankylosaur (Eurasia). *'Titanosaur, '''one of the few sauropod dinosaurs on Earth. It survives on a large island off the coast of Africa, as well as some dwarf species on various small islands(Madagascar) *'Tree Hopper, an arboreal leaping predatory dinosaur (Africa). *Treepounce, an agile marten-like arboreal predatory dinosaur (North America). *Treewyrm, an arboreal snake-like predatory dinosaur with a slender neck and no front legs (Asia). *Tromble, ' a massive flightless grazing bird from the Arctic regions (Eurasia). *'Tubb, a slow-moving koala-like hypsilophodont with a pot belly and short legs. Its tail is shorter than its ancestors. It eats mostly eucalyptus leaves (Australia) *Turtosaur, an armored sauropod (South America). *Waspeater, a thick-scaled anteater-like predatory dinosaur that eats wasps (Africa). *Watergulp, a manatee-like hypsilophodont (South America) *Whiffle, a flightless insect-eating bird (Eurasia). *Wyrm, a snake-like predatory dinosaur with no arms, thick belly scales, and an armored head used as a shield when burrowing (Africa) Mammals *Zwim,' a swimming placental mammal (Eurasia) Pterosaurs *'Flarp, a flightless grazing ostrich-like pterosaur (Africa) *Harridan, a large condor-like pterosaur (South America). *Kloon, a small flightless moa-like pterosaur with no wings and flexible feet (New Zealand). *Lank, a flightless giraffe-like pterosaur (Africa). *Paraso, a solitary heron-like pterosaur (Asia). *Plunger, a penguin-like pterosaur. *Shorerunner, ' a small mobile island-dwelling pterosaur that behaves like a gull, beachcombing and eating the corpses of any animal stranded on shore.Although it's wings are slightly atrophied,it is still capable of true flight (Oceania). *'Sift, a fine-toothed heron-like pterosaur (North America). *Soar,' an albatross-like pterosaur. *'Wandle, a giant flightless moa-like pterosaur that lives in high altitude plains in small groups (New Zealand). Plesiosaurs and pliosaurs *Birdsnatcher, a large bird-eating elasmosaur with an elongated neck. *Pelorus, a fish-shaped pliosaur that eats fish. It also hunts the kraken and is one of the few predators that is immune to the kraken's venom. *Whulk, '''a large whale-like plankton-eating pliosaur. Inaccuracies many years after the publication of the book, have now found some errors concerning the morphology, behavior and ecological niche of dinosaurs and other animals featured in the book, among these errors are: #the presentation of dinosaurs, with really extravagant or very different anatomies to their ancestors to the point that makes them improbable. #the low diversity of groups and different species were exposed as still belonging to groups and families of their ancestors, with some exceptions. #the animals that are shown tend to look too much to our Timeline. Category:Alternative evolution